Today’s readings: Acts 2, 14.22-28; 1 Peter 1, 17-21; Luke 24, 13-35.
It makes no sense at all for us who believe, to continue Sunday after Sunday speaking of Christ risen and of his victory over death and evil as if we live in a vacuum. Faith-talk has to be with feet to the ground and connected to the anxieties of life and to whatever upsets us.
At this point in time in the life of this beloved country, it feels like we are in the shoes of the two disciples of Jesus on their way to Emmaus.
They were with hearts distraught for all that had happened in the city of Jerusalem. We also are with hearts distraught for all the encircling gloom that has such a grasp on us all.
I refer, of course, to the political unrest we are in, with all that this entails for our social cohesion and for the peace of this country. As we read in the first reading today, with Peter boldly addressing those who had killed Jesus, God raised him to life, setting him free; for it was impossible for him to be held in the power of death.
Likewise in the Emmaus narrative from Luke, we read about what seemed to have killed once for all the hope of so many disciples of Jesus. When hope fades away, we face darkness. It seems that we’ve come to a point when we really need to go back to the drawing board, when we need to consult again with our maps, when we need direction and moral strength.
In a way, and very concretely, what we are going through now as a society is a revisiting of this same narrative when Jesus, without being acknowledged, made himself present and provided orientation, referred the disciples back to their first love, and re-energised them to let go of their anxiety and again face life with courage and hope.
For this to happen, though, we cannot afford to be in denial about who we really are. Beyond the cover-ups of our staunch religiosity, so manifest just days ago, we need to come to terms with who we really are, with the evil that threatens the very fabric of our society, with the corruption that is rampant in our institutions, and with the head-in-air religion we continue to practise.
It’s time that we wake up to what should really be disturbing our consciences. We have just celebrated Easter. But we are not aware that we’ve been drifting away to Emmaus and far from Jerusalem, that space where we belong and where again we may let faith in Jesus risen empower us in the face of death and evil.
It makes sense to profess our faith in Jesus risen, in his victory over death and all that kills hope in life, only if we have the inner and moral strength to choose integrity over corruption, truth over the lie. Failing to do this would make of us, to use Scott Peck’s phrase, “people of the lie”.
The darkness we face can be too overwhelming and much bigger than we can take, if we do not recover the inner strength that comes from our faith. As Cardinal John Henry Newman wrote in his Lead Kindly Light, “when the night is dark and I am far from home, one step is enough for me”. I wonder what that one step could be for each and everyone of us.